Sunburn
by storybycorey
Summary: A post The Truth on-the-run fic, companion to "Three Words Lighter".


Her pain marks his skin like a sunburn—so gradual, the damage is done before he even feels the heat. So subtle, he barely registers the hitch in her voice, the turn of her head, as they collect miles the way a child collects candy.

It's easy to miss at first. He's too caught up in the nearness of her body after so many months apart. She is warmth and light after an endless amount of shivering in the dark. She is Vitamin D and the sun.

In the beginning, the interminable stretches of highway are a sweeping romantic adventure, full of danger and excitement and alabaster skin only an arm's length away. His hand finds her thigh so often, there's surely an imprint by now. They're together. Finally. That's all that matters, he thinks.

Her body is new and old and finally within reach, and at times, he can barely restrain himself from taking her right there in the car, or at the gas station, or wherever they are when she bites at her lip in the way that's undone him for nine frustrating years. He waits though, at least until dark. She's much more willing to give in when nobody else can see, whether they've made it into the room or not.

A week in, he fucks her in a deserted laundromat, presses her hard against a dented restroom door, the combination of sweat and sex and lilac-scented fabric softener so heady, she coyly complains of bruises the next morning.

He can handle the responsibility for that kind of pain. The pain that bleeds through her cracks in the coming weeks is more difficult though.

She smiles at him across plates full of French fries, holds his hand as they slip through state lines, but her eyes sometimes—they're red and wet and heartbreaking. He's scared to ask why—he's afraid her pain piled atop his could bury them.

It's those times the sunburn aches the most—his shoulders pink, his skin tight, and on bad days, blisters surfacing across his flesh like bubbles in a boiling pot of water.

She's miserable. And he's responsible. And he doesn't know how to make it better.

…

There are things they never talk about those first few months, though hours of silence on the road invite conversation with an engraved invitation. The two of them could write a goddamned book about not talking. It's remarkable really, how two such intelligent people can navigate through life with blinders on.

He hates the silence, but hates the thought of addressing the pain even more. They've both had enough pain to last several lifetimes. He knows she's hurting. He can feel it in the air of the car sometimes, seeping from her body in waves.

Some days, when the roads are long and the windshield chicken-poxed with bug carcasses, his own pain threatens to join the fray. But he won't allow it. He has no right. Not when he's the one who left, he's the one who's forced them into a life that is barely worthy of living at times.

So he soothes her with kisses late at night, he wraps his body around hers in cheap motel beds, he buys her dark chocolate at the 7-11, all to see her smile. And she does. Most of the time. But the times are coming fewer and farther between.

And it's not fair (as if anything has been fair in their lives until now). That they're finally together, yet have paid so dearly, there's nothing left to appreciate. They find solace in each other's bodies, but not in each other's words. Despite it all, her skin is still his favorite delicacy, even when everything else has gone to shit.

She never denies him, though there are days he's sure she wants to. There are days he wishes she would—he wills her to lash out at him, to refuse his greedy, groping fingers. He deserves the denial, deserves to go without his daily, frantic fix of her. He's entirely unworthy of the love she so freely gives, desperately, beseechingly, beneath motel sheets that smell of bleach and behind doors that lock it all inside.

…

There's a baby boy one day, across the aisle while they eat their breakfast, and he watches her as she turns away. But while it's hard to see her in pain, he also wants to take her by the shoulders and shake her. He wants to scream. _Don't you see, Scully? It hurts me, too! You're not the only one who lost him!_ But instead of screaming, he buys her a package of her favorite fancy breathmints while she spends much too long in the bathroom.

It's one of their unspoken rules. They don't talk about him. They talk about maps and scenery and radio stations. Old cases, trivia, nothing. But never him. There are days he aches to ask. _How did he smell, Scully? How soft was his skin? Did the weight of him asleep in your arms bring tears to your eyes? How much did it hurt on that very last day…?_ But he can't ask those things. He can't ask anything. Because how can he ask when he's the one who left?

He reaches for her that night—in the dark—highway sounds bleeding through the poorly-fit doorframe in another random hotel. It's the only thing he knows how to do for her, how to possibly make her forget.

It never fails to stun him when he's nestled between her legs—how much she feels like home. He closes his eyes and is right back in his apartment, unearthing her for the very first time. She's all he has left. She's everything.

She's frenzied that night, clawing at him, rising beneath him like a hurricane wave, desperate and rough and chaotic. _Yes_ , he thinks, _this…, this is what we need. We need passion, we need emotion, we need…_

"You LEFT us," her words bite so sharply, he hears the flesh as it tears away from his bones.

He's in shock for a moment, that she's finally said it out loud, that she's broken this vow of silence neither ever really made yet both seem to obey. It's terrible and awful, yet so very, very necessary.

He stills, but she urges him on, digging into his shoulders and gripping him with her thighs almost frantically. So he fucks her. He fucks her hard. He pours himself inside her with every ounce of his strength, and with each thrust, his body screams _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry_.

She comes with a fervor he hasn't seen since those first glorious nights together, a lifetime ago in a place he's almost forgotten. The ragged sound of her agonized cry draws him over the edge as well.

After, lying damp and spent beside her in a nest of tangled sheets, he pulls her against his chest. Her silent tears burn his skin, but he welcomes the pain—it's a penance he should have served months ago. His own tears are just as silent.

And just as painful.

Just like a sunburn.


End file.
